Electronic products have become an integral part of our daily lives. Notably, many portable electronics with complex integrated circuits are not only common but also often utilized without the slightest thought about the underlying technology. Many products such as cell phones, portable computers, voice recorders, cars, planes, etc. include very sophisticated technology.
With virtually all functions and purposes for which we use these products, there continues to be demand for new features, speed, data, or portability. These demands continually drive the electronics industry to reduce the size, improve the utility, and increase the performance of the integrated circuit devices contained within these products to which we have become accustomed.
In order to interface an integrated circuit with other circuitry, it is common to mount it on a lead frame or substrate. Each integrated circuit has bonding pads that are individually connected to the lead frame's lead finger pads using extremely fine gold or aluminum wires. The assemblies are then packaged by individually encapsulating them in molded plastic or ceramic bodies to create an integrated circuit package.
Integrated circuit packaging technology has seen an increase in the number of integrated circuits mounted on a single circuit board or substrate. The new packaging designs are more compact in form factors, such as the physical size and shape of an integrated circuit, and providing a significant increase in overall integrated circuit density. However, integrated circuit density continues to be limited by the “real estate” available for mounting individual integrated circuits on a substrate and the size of the packages.
Even larger form factor systems, such as PC's, computer servers, and storage servers, need more integrated circuits in the same or smaller “real estate”. In particular, the need for portable personal electronics, such as cell phones, digital cameras, music players, PDA's, and location-based devices, has further driven the need for integrated circuit density.
This need for increased integrated circuit density, has led to the development of multi-chip packages in which more than one integrated circuit can be packaged. Each package provides mechanical support for the individual integrated circuits and one or more layers of interconnect lines that enable the integrated circuits to be connected electrically to surrounding circuitry.
Current multi-chip packages, also commonly referred to as multi-chip modules, typically consist of a PCB substrate onto which a set of separate integrated circuit components is directly attached. Such multi-chip packages have been found to increase integrated circuit density and miniaturization, improve signal propagation speed, reduce overall integrated circuit size and weight, improve performance, and lower costs—all primary goals of the computer industry.
There continue to be limitations on the number of die that can be stacked in a package. Same die stacking with all bond pads at one side allows staircase stacking eliminating the need for thick spacers between the dies. However, stacking is still restricted by the package size where over-stacking cause die protrusion requiring extra long packages.
Despite the advantages of recent developments in integrated circuit and integrated circuit package manufacturing, there is a continuing need for improving integrated circuit device and integrated circuit package connectivity and stacking to provide improved density as well as structural integrity, manufacturing yield, and product reliability.
Thus, a need still remains for an integrated circuit package system to provide improved die stacking and dimensions. In view of the increasing demand for improved density of integrated circuits and particularly portable electronic products, it is increasingly critical that answers be found to these problems.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.